Danica Patrick will become the first woman to compete in the Sprint Cup Series at Martinsville Speedway when she takes to the track this weekend.

She will become one of many rookies, though, who have had an adventurous experience as she struggles to get a handle on NASCAR’s shortest track.

The paper-clip-shaped oval, the shortest on the Cup circuit at 0.526-mile, requires a mix of patience and aggressiveness. It requires patience to resist the temptation to not hit someone in the rear bumper, causing a spin and possibly a multicar wreck in the aftermath.

But it also demands aggressiveness to pass other cars and to take a position when the door is open just a crack.

“As an owner, I’m going to be very nervous,” said Patrick’s co-owner Tony Stewart. “As a driver, I’m going to be laughing a lot. I remember my first time (there).

“It was like watching a kid get in one of those air-bounce deals and having somebody else jumping at the same time. You’re just jumping along and all of a sudden, a kid will hit at the same time you do and it throws you up this way and off this way. You think, ‘What happened?’

“There are going to be a lot of those moments.”

The team decided not to test at Martinsville and Patrick didn’t race at Martinsville during her 10 Cup races last year. The Nationwide Series, where she raced for parts of three seasons, also does not race at Martinsville, with the Camping World Truck Series serving as the companion series there with Sprint Cup.

So Patrick she will take all the advice she can get going into the STP Gas Booster 400.

“Part of me wants to tell her everything I know and try to help her get through it,” Stewart said. “But part of me is like, ‘It doesn’t matter what you say, you kind of have to go through the first experience of it and get a feel for it on your own.’”

Patrick, 29th in the Cup standings after five races, knows it will be tough for a driver who does not have a stock-car background.

“I am actually really excited about Martinsville,” Patrick said. “I like the little short tracks. They are fun. We are going to be close racing a lot of the time. We went testing out at Little Rock (next to Rockingham Speedway) and got a feel for a track like Martinsville.

“I thought we actually made some really big gains that day. It was fun. Is there time to look down at your water and oil temperatures? No, there is not.”

There also won’t be time for her to worry about everyone who hits her.

“I’m sure there are things that are going to happen in the race she’s not ready for,” Stewart said. “There’s never a race (at Martinsville) where I’ve never touched bumpers with somebody at some point.

“Ninety percent of the time, it’s accidental and it doesn’t lead to a wreck, but you get bumped and that’s something she’s not used to yet.”

Stewart said Patrick’s first reaction will be that she’s been hit on purpose.

“The hard part will be pulling the reins back because somebody will bump into her, and she’ll want to knock them through the fence after that,” Stewart said. “It’s probably just an accident. The spotter is going to have a long, long three days.”

The first woman ever to win a pole for a Cup race when she led the Daytona 500 to green, Patrick did not know that she will be the first woman to race a Cup event at Martinsville until she was told a couple of weeks ago.

“Between that and never having a Martinsville hot dog, I guess there is probably going to be lots of firsts there that weekend,” she quipped.